The invention concerns ski bindings of the type comprising a sole plate on which a boot can be held. In a known arrangement, sold under the Trade Mark "Burt", each end of such a sole plate is retained on a ski by means of a respective flexible cable a part of which is held by the ski and one end of which is permanently held under tension by spring means. Both spring means are supported by the sole plate, that of the front or toe retaining cable being housed within the thickness of the plate, and that of the rear or heel retaining cable being disposed in a case disposed vertically at the rear of the sole plate. While this known binding includes numerous advantageous features, the rear cable housing increases the overall weight of the sole-plate and, to some skiers, is undesirably bulky.